Paper short abstract:

Based on the analysis of the Chinese social network dedicated to cosmetic surgery, I will try to understand how physical transformations and the use of filters in selfies create images influenced by a distinctly unreal aesthetic, transforming the human body into an almost non-human figuration.

Paper long abstract:

In recent years, with the introduction of technology in daily life, many new practices have emerged. Selfie is an example, a new word defined in 2013 as “photography that one has taken of oneself, typically one taken with a smartphone or webcam and shared via social media”.

Recurrent research on selfies focuses not only on its meaning, but also on its authenticity, showing that a large percentage of those that are placed on social networks are subject to filters, presenting individuals not as they are but as they would like to be. Some works relate this phenomenon to the search for aesthetic interventions, known as snapchat dysmorphia disorder.

Among the countries that observe an exponential growth of aesthetic intervention, there’s China, ranking second in the list of countries that most perform plastic surgery, and simultaneously the country with the largest number of users of social networks.

In my proposal, I intend to analyze the content of a Chinese social network that has no parallel with others. So Young is an exclusive network designed to demonstrate the results of aesthetic interventions but where filters continue being used.

I propose to demonstrate how the result of the aesthetic interventions carried out is not necessarily the result the user intended, being necessary the use of filters to make it possible to achieve the ideal imaginary.

This ideal imaginary, as we shall see, is influenced by a distinctly unreal aesthetic, transforming the human body and sculpting it according to an almost non-human figuration.